Smitty cut him off. “No, I’m serious. Do you know Bill McFarland?”
“Jug?”
Smitty nodded. “He’s a test pilot stationed in China Lake with VX-31.”
“Yeah, we were partners during Air Combat Maneuvering in Kingsville,” Colt said. After getting winged, the Navy had ordered the pair to separate coasts. Their friendship went the way of most of those forged in the military, and they lost touch. Then it dawned on him. “Jug is your college roommate?”
Smitty nodded. “If you can get the maintenance data to him…”
“If I had it.” Colt wanted to give Smitty every chance to preserve his deniability.
But the Marine was having none of it. “Yeah, whatever. As I was saying, if you can get it to him, I’ll let him know you’re coming and that he needs to help you.”
“What makes you think he’ll listen to you?”
Smitty grinned. “Spring break, senior year, Negril, Jamaica.”
Despite feeling about as hopeless as he’d ever felt in his entire life, the comment made Colt smile. He considered the offer for a moment, letting it hang in the air between them, knowing that Smitty was risking not only his reputation but his friendship to help him out. He could have simply turned his back on him, and Colt wouldn’t have thought any less of him for it.
At last, he looked Smitty in the eyes and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied with a grin. “These photos are very compromising.”
He laughed and slapped the Marine on the shoulder, then nodded. “Okay. Let him know I’m coming and that I’m not crazy.”
“Can’t vouch for the crazy part.”
Colt chuckled. “That’s valid.”
Smitty nodded and his smile vanished, resuming the stoic Marine facade under his high-and-tight haircut. “Good luck, brother.”
Colt waited until Smitty had turned the corner before continuing to the head, eager to shower and catch the COD to shore. There was a dim flicker of hope on the horizon, and he had locked in on it like a heat-seeking missile.
“Sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms. Give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft…”
Punky launched her dad’s restored Corvette Stingray through the intersection at Alameda before stomping on the brakes to avoid blowing through the guard post at Naval Air Station North Island’s main gate. She held up her NCIS credentials and waited impatiently for the Security Forces sailor to wave her aboard, then floored the gas pedal and raced west on Stockdale toward the flight line.
She knew it had been a bad idea sleeping in her childhood home but hadn’t wanted to risk missing the flight out to the carrier. Ironically, sleeping there had most likely caused her to do just that. She had suppressed her initial hesitation and arrived at the cottage in the middle of the night, sneaking inside like she had done countless times as a teenager. She moved through the tiny house as if on autopilot, ignored its ghosts, and crashed onto the bed she had grown up in without setting an alarm.
When Uncle Rick had called, it had taken her a moment to remember where she was. But that moment was all she needed to recall she was supposed to already be on base, begging the aircraft commander for a ride out to the Abraham Lincoln.
Reaching the flight line, Punky turned left and spurred the Corvette down the straightaway until she reached the VRC-30 hangar across the street from the iconic I-Bar at the Bachelor Officer Quarters. Her rear tires let loose as she careened around the corner, and her stomach lurched when she saw a C-2 Greyhound on the ramp beyond the hangar with its propellers already spinning.
“No,” she said in disbelief. She drove straight at the chain link fence before again slamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt. She jumped from the idling muscle car and stared in open-mouthed horror at the cargo plane preparing to taxi away.
“No!” she shouted.
In reply, the sound of the churning propellers rose in pitch as the COD began rolling forward. When it turned away from her, she looked beyond the lowered ramp into the gaping darkness of the interior and saw several pallets of cargo and rows of empty seats.
One of which she should have been strapped into.
She wanted to cry but knew it would do no good. What she needed to do was figure out how to get in touch with the pilot who had downloaded the aircraft data and get it to somebody who could analyze it for clues leading her to KMART. But without a ride out to the ship, she was back at square one.
What would Uncle Rick do?
She shook away the thought, reminding herself that she had gotten to where she was on her own and didn’t need anybody else’s help. But the thought of her father’s best friend reminded her of the early morning phone call, and she replayed the conversation in her mind.
She removed her cell phone to check for missed texts or phone calls and noticed a notification of a waiting message. She unlocked the phone, opened the secure message portal, then entered her passcode to download the pending message. After decrypting it, she felt the blood drain from her face.
TEXT FROM INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION FOLLOWS.
FROM: TANDY
TO: KMART
1. PROVIDE DETAILED INFORMATION ON NAVY PILOT.
2. BE ALERT FOR OPPORTUNITY TO ELIMINATE.
“Holy shit,” Punky said.
She backed away from the chain link fence and looked up into the sky in time to see the Greyhound climbing slowly into the air toward Point Loma before banking and turning out to sea. If she thought the pilot had been at risk before, this message made it crystal clear TANDY wanted him out of the picture. Espionage, sabotage… murder. The Abraham Lincoln was getting way more than she bargained for during her workups.
She might have missed the first COD out to the Lincoln, but there was still a chance she could pull some strings and find herself on the next one. She slipped her phone back into her pocket, then smoothed back her hair and pulled it into a ponytail before turning for the hangar and the door leading to the VRC-30 quarterdeck.
17
Rick climbed back into his BMW after watching TANDY deposit something at a dead drop location on campus. He had been torn between following her or recovering whatever it was she had placed under the bench, but in the end decided he couldn’t afford to lose her. He had placed the tracking device on the Jeep, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t ditch it for new wheels, and he needed to be prepared for that eventuality.
Still, his walk back to the M5 was more relaxed. The pulsing blue dot on his phone’s map showed the Jeep leaving campus and returning to Highway 101, and he felt confident he could home in on the beacon and close the distance gradually. He backed out of his space and drove down the hill, passing a man walking in the opposite direction toward a Mission-style house set back in the trees. He turned left on Perimeter Road and drove toward the stadium, before making another left to exit the campus.
Within minutes, Rick was back up to speed on the highway, contemplating the significance of KMART’s handler driving through the night to Cal Poly to complete a drop. Was somebody at the university involved in the conspiracy? He reached across the center console for the pen and notepad sitting on the passenger seat and hastily scrawled three words.
CAL POLY FACULTY?
Chen sat behind the wheel of the Jeep, focused on returning to Long Beach to prepare for the night’s operation. Though the brief walk through campus to the dead drop had shaken off some of her fatigue, the prospect of sitting behind the wheel for several more hours was daunting. She cracked the windows to allow the cool sea breeze to waft over and invigorate her, but it wasn’t until she received a message in Signal that her fatigue evaporated.